lessons from the "child raping" thread

[Paul Phillips]

I never thought my name would be mentioned quite so many times in
the context of raping a teenager without my arrest and indictment to
follow. Still, if you can get past the surface characteristics
there is a lot of valuable information in that thread. Argument
is a slippery matter and many people are willing to opportunistically
abuse the tools of debate. See it performed by someone "trained in the
art" (as it were) and most valuably of all being done to defend such
an indefensible position. The distance between any normal person's
common sense and the shifting stance being defended is so great as to
blast a spotlight on all the rhetorical tricks being applied.

Especially notice the vast journey the position undertakes, from the
incarnation that started the ruckus ("I would never let you anywhere near
my daughter") proceeding through a wide range of fallback positions
until it bears no resemblance to the originally contested analogy.
It's a clinic. There are some genuinely interesting responses written
by a wide range of people who analyze the many disingenuous fallacies.

If you can ignore the inanity of the literal discussion and go for
the subtext, there's some gold in there. If people had a greater ability
to recognize logical fallacies perhaps we'd see fewer of them from
politicians and reporters and enjoy a slightly higher level of public
discourse. I'm sure that's optimistic but it couldn't hurt.

As a bonus there is a parallel discussion that includes one of the
biggest gambling fallacies, albeit in a non-gambling context:


There is also a solid foot bridge 100 meters to your left. You'll have
to walk an extra 200 meters to cross the solid foot bridge and get to the
same point on the other side. You are 99.99999% sure the rope bridge
would support you and that you will not fall.

Which bridge do you take?

If you remove the solid foot bridge from the scenario, then of course you
will take the rope bridge. Yes, there is a small risk that it might break,
or that you might slip and fall, but it's a very miniscule risk. But with
the solid foot bridge nearby, even that miniscule risk on the rope bridge
is an unnecessary risk.


This is a fallacy also embraced by politicians: comparing alternatives
without comparing alternative cost (usually, assuming a zero cost for the
supported alternative.) If it requires one minute to walk the extra
distance then that's a minute you spent doing something you didn't want
to be doing. Let's reconsider the situation if that bridge is on your way
to and from work every day for ten thousand days (about twenty-five years).

A) Go the long way at a lifetime cost of 20,000 minutes. Generously
asssuming 6 leisure hours available per day, that's about 56 days of
lost leisure time.

B) Take the rope bridge, at a one in ten million chance of dying per
crossing. Chance of dying along the way 1 - (9,999,999/10,000,000)^20000,
which equals .2%, about a 1/500 chance. Now I can believe there are
people so risk-averse that they would trade their leisure time for
two months to avoid a 1/500 shot at death -- but if those people want
to be consistent in their risk management they're going to have a lot
of trouble living in the modern world.

Actually there's a third strategy where we walk the long way while
we're young and start taking the rope bridge at some point when the
amount of life we might lose has lessened to an acceptable level,
but we'll overlook that one for now.

Now who knows, maybe you enjoy walking the extra minute, but that
undoes the question. The proposal only makes sense if you don't want to
walk the extra distance. If you understand expectation you know it makes
no difference whether you must cross the bridge one time or thousands.
The tradeoff exists whether you are willing to acknowledge it or not.
It's either the right thing to do from your personal utility standpoint
or it isn't.

(There are other semi-silly arguments one could make, such as that the
marginal utility of the preserved minute doesn't make up for the stress
of crossing the rope bridge, and I bet a certain someone will come up
with an argument something like that, but watch how any such attempt will
require reframing the original argument's obvious point.)

There are countless applications of this principle to gambling situations.
And since this is long enough, "I'll let others elaborate."

[ThaSaltCracka]

[offTopic]

All I know is this:

Based on your various encounters here and on RGP, you truly are flypaper for freaks.

[wacki]

You sound like my dad, he is a lawyer. What do you do for a living?

P.S. Good post.

[Wake up CALL]

[ QUOTE ]
What do you do for a living?

[/ QUOTE ]

Whatever he wants, he is wealthy as hell!! LoL

[wacki]

Oh [censored], it's THAT paul phillips. I didn't realize.

[phixxx]

You ALMOST won with jack high vs Daniel.

[Paul Phillips]

[ QUOTE ]
You sound like my dad, he is a lawyer.

[/ QUOTE ]

I will use context to take that as a compliment, thanks.

[ QUOTE ]
What do you do for a living?

[/ QUOTE ]

Examining the data: unpaid writing.

[Beavis68]

Jack high? He called me with jack high?!?

[codewarrior]

Once again - half as long.... [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]